BBC NEWS | Technology | Build it and they may not come
Bill Thompson highlighting the Government's policy on broadband adoption (echoed in my previous post by BT) and the reasons why even suppling the service may not lead to greater adoption...
The rural broadband campaigners are doing a great job, and more and more communities are forming co-operatives or other mutual ventures to provide a service that the free market seems unable to deliver, but that is not going to be enough.
The socialist in me would welcome a three-year plan to provide complete broadband coverage to every croft, hamlet and shepherd's cottage in the United Kingdom - including beach huts and campsites - but I'm enough of a realist to know that isn't going to happen.
And there is good evidence that even if we built the infrastructure at vast public expense, the people wouldn't come.
Even where broadband is available, and even where it doesn't cost much more than dialup, rates of uptake have been far lower than anticipated. Adoption is far from universal even in larger cities.
Quoting the iSociety's research that there ar numerous micro-barriers to take up that are rarely discussed at a policy or commercial level.
He goes on to comment:
Getting people onto broadband isn't just a political imperative - it is rapidly becoming a social one too.
My daughter uses MSN Messenger to keep in touch with her schoolfriends out of school, and the kids who don't have access are excluded from the social networks that emerge.
My son researches his school projects on the web, but if we were using dialup over a shared phone line I'd keep his time online to a minimum and limit his researches.
Those with always-on, fairly fast net access are beginning to see real benefits from their easy access to the net, and I think that eventually everyone else will see what is going on.
Two areas I'd highlight here - social benefit always a difficult sell and Bill's suggestion that people shouldn't have to form Co-ops.
The social benefit of Broadband could be tremendous. Education does certainly seem to be a key enabler and not just with Broadband. In terms of society as a whole more investment in education and perhaps broadband, as a wider investment as Korea has undertaken may be one route. Of course this is quite a change of context for the UK and the Government, although perhaps Quangos such as the Learning grids and development agencies can have an impat?
Leading on from this and into my second point I think we should be encouraging Co-operative ventures. As per the topics at Brand Activism, a Mutualist approach where organisations are run in the interests of the wider groups of stakeholders can have notable benefits and not just in terms of reduced costs of purchase. The community which can develop around such ventures could enable a wider scope for benefits as people help themselves not only in terms of Broadband access and support but also in terms of how they use the technology creating Communities of practice and perhaps seeing wider applications for the technology and the venture.
I think therefore that a Mutualist model is worthy of wider consideration and that that is what the Government should consider stimulating either itself or through other bodies...